Chapter published in:
Style, Rhetoric and Creativity in Language: In memory of Walter (Bill) Nash (1926-2015)
Edited by Paul Simpson
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 34] 2019
► pp. 77–84

Chapter 4
Riddling: The dominant rhetorical device in W. H. Auden’s “The Wanderer”

| University of Amsterdam
This chapter focuses on rhetorical and stylistic patterns in W. H. Auden’s “The Wanderer” (1966). After a preliminary stylistic analysis of the poem’s sound, grammar and vocabulary, the author shifts to consider aspects of the wider discoursal context in which Auden’s poem is framed. This enlarging of the poem’s context is assisted through the incorporation of relevant particulars from Auden’s biography, from around the time the poet was writing “The Wanderer”. It is pointed out how Auden himself talked of his fascination with Anglo-Saxon poetry, with its metrical and rhetorical devices. The chapter also explores the ways in which a stronger interpretation of the poem can be reached by positioning the poem’s language against the phonological and rhetorical arrangements of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Particular attention is paid both to the rhetorical device of kenning and to the stylistic and rhetorical composition of riddles in the Exeter Book. The chapter concludes that a rounder and more productive reading of Auden’s “The Wanderer” can be reached when it is informed by knowledge of the rhetorical and stylistic features of its literary precursor.
Keywords: Anglo-Saxon poetry, Auden, W. H., “Exeter Book”, kenning, riddles, “Wanderer, The”
Article outline
  • 1.A preliminary reading
  • 2.Discussion: Style and tone
    • 2.1Text, context, discourse
    • 2.2Metrical and rhetorical devices in Old and Middle English literature
  • 3.The Anglo-Saxon riddles and poems in the Exeter book
  • 4.Poetry and play in the Exeter Book riddles
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.34.06ver
References
Auden, W. H.
1966 Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
1975 The Dyer’s Hand and other essays. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Carpenter, H.
1981 W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Clark Hall, J. R.
1962 A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crossley-Holland, K.
2008 The Exeter Book Riddles. London: Enitharmon Press.Google Scholar
Higl, A.
2017 Riddle Hero: Play and Poetry in the Exeter Book Riddles. American Journal of Play 9 (3): 374–394.Google Scholar
Huizinga, J.
1955 Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Jones, C.
2013 Earlier English Influences. In W. H. Auden in Context, Sharpe, T. (ed.), 257–265. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Krapp, G. P. and Dobbie, E. V. K.
1936 The Exeter Book. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Leech, G. N.
1969 A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mendelson, E.
1981 Early Auden. New York: The Viking Press.Google Scholar
Nash, W.
2006 A Departed Music: Readings in Old English Poetry. Hockwold-cum-Wilton, Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books.Google Scholar
Poems
1928 Auden’s first published collection of poems, published by Stephen Spender. At: https://​www​.bl​.uk​/collection​-items​/poems​-audens​-first​-published ( 23 May 2018).Google Scholar
Verdonk, P.
2012 Paraphrase as a way to a contextualized stylistic analysis of poetry: Tony Harrison’s ‘Marked with D’. In Stylistics, Burke, M. (ed.), Vol. II, 324–334. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2013 The Stylistics of Poetry: Context, Cognition, Discourse, History. London & New York: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Werth, P.
1999 Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Wrenn, C. L.
1967 A Study of Old English Literature. London: George Harrap & Co.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Statham, Simon
2020. The year’s work in stylistics 2019. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 29:4 ► pp. 454 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 01 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.